Rebels, Patriotes and Patriot Hunters
In the aftermath of the rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada in the late 1830s, and of the invasions by American Patriot Hunters, some of the rebels and invaders were hanged and some had their death sentences commuted to "transportation for life." Those who were hanged have been remembered by history, but those who were transported to the cruel Australian convict colonies have been largely forgotten.
Now, Jack Cahill, one of Canada's most respected journalists, reveals what happened to those forgotten convicts.
Based in part on journals written by the Canadian and American prisoners in Australia, his book tells of the scurvy and death on the crowded rickety ships that carried them to the end of the earth, of their sufferings as brutalized slaves, their sad pinings for home and family, and their many attempts to escape, some successful. He also introduces a magnificent Canadian heroine, Maria Wait, who saved her own husband from death minutes before he went to the gallows, then risked her life and family attempting to rescue others from their convict chains.
Because so little was known about the Canadian and American convicts in Australia, Cahill approached the subject as an investigative journalist rather than a historian. But the renowned Canadian historian Desmond Morton reported after reading the manuscript: "This is a great story. I'm sure the material you report is unknown outside the part of the [history] profession that specializes in the Rebellions. The Wait material, in particular, is fascinating and serves the modern eagerness for unearthing strong, courageous women."
The Author: Jack Cahill was born and educated in Australia,
but has no convict ancestors. After service in the Royal Australian
Air Force in World War II, he became a cadet reporter in 1946
and eventually chief crime reporter for the Sydney Daily Telegraph.
He immigrated to Canada in 1957 to join the Vancouver Sun,
where he worked on the crim
e
beat and then became chief of the paper's legislative bureau
in Victoria and eventually its Ottawa bureau chief.
In 1965 he moved to the Toronto Star, where he became bureau chief at Queen's Park, national editor and then Ottawa bureau chief. Through the 1970s he was the Star's Asian bureau chief, based in Hong Kong. Toward the end of his 45 years in the front lines of journalism, he was a senior feature writer for the Toronto Star, specializing in national and international affairs. When he retired in 1991, the Star described him as "the reporter who has been everywhere and done everything."
Jack Cahill has won many awards for journalism, including a National Newspaper Award in 1975 for his coverage of the Vietnam War. He is the author of four earlier books: If You Don't Like the War, Switch the Damn Thing Off! (General Publishing, 1980), Hot Box: The Story of the Mississauga Disaster (Paperjacks, 1980), John Turner The Long Run, a biography (McClelland and Stewart, 1984) and Words of War (Deneau, 1987). He lives in Toronto with his wife, Marie.